Hoping For a New Life
by Do Play With Fire
Summary: Miri is looking for a higher education for herself, and everyone else in the village, but danger still lurks in the mountains, that could threaten her future, and everyone else's.


Note

Princess Academy has already been written. That is why this story is different. This does not take place in the middle ages, nor does it take place on Mount Eskle. It takes place now in a mining town in the Adirondacks, where the people mine for marble not linder. Britta married a very successful businessman's son, who lives in a penthouse on Wall Street, and the Academy is a finishing school in the Bronx.

Miri stared out the window of the tiny house the she, her father, and her sister Marda lived in. She was studding trigonometry on the laptop that she gotten from the academy, and it was hard. All of the girls had learned lots at Prime and Proper Finishing School. Before Prime and Proper, all you learned was reading, writing, adding, subtracting, multiplication, and division. Why would you learn more when it would be no use to you in the mines? You were not going to go to college, for college was for wealthy upper-class citizens, not poor lower-class miners. Now things had changed, for college was what Miri wanted to do.

At Prime and Proper, Miri and the other girls studied the classics, learned history, sciences, and algebra. These gave the girls a chance to pursue and education, and maybe, just maybe go to college. Miri wanted to go to college very desperately, but education was not her only responsibility. Miri had to work in the mines, teach the other people, do household work, and get money to go to college, and that was made by waiting tables at a restaurant in a wealthier town down around 15 miles down the road. Miri got there by riding the bus. The bus stop was about half a mile away from her village.

It was 10:00pm, and Miri had two hours of studying left. Miri woke up at 7:00am every morning, had breakfast, and did household work with Marda for an hour. Household work involved sweeping, washing dishes, making beds, feeding the goats, making goat cheese, and cleaning the bathroom. When all of that was done, Miri and Marda went to the mines. Miri had never been allowed in them for a while, but now she was. After Prime and Proper, Miri had learned to speak through the marble with her thoughts, just like everyone else in the village. This helped save the school, when gangsters attacked the school. Prime and Proper had marble floors.

Miri and everyone else mined until 1:30pm. Then all of the girls set to work trying to educate the boys and adults. The people were making progress. They had learned the order of operations, fractions, decimals, some basic equations with variables, square roots, history, some science, studied some books, and improved their spelling. They girls taught the people six days a week, so they learned quickly. The girls also continued their education online every day, and they hoped that they, and everyone else in the village would be able to take the SATs in around two years, and get a high school diploma. Miri was the only one who wanted to go to college. Where will you get the money was the common question. School was in session from 1:45, until 6:00.

At 6:00, Miri ran to the bus that took her to work. Miri ate her dinner on the bus, and from 6:30, until 8:30, she waited tables. Miri was paid $7.00, and hour, but she often collected around $20.00 in tips, because the restaurant was the best restaurant in town, and Miri was a good waitress. Thanks to income tax, Miri did not make the dream $34.00 a day, instead, she made only $25.00, a day, but that was only on weekdays. On weekends, she worked for six hours, and made $60.00 in tips. She hoped this would pay for college, along with her online education. Because she only had 3 and half hours of school a day, she had to school seven days a week. Now, she was struggling over a hard trigonometry problem in the middle of the night. She was ready for bed so that when midnight came, she could just hop into bed and sleep. Finally midnight came, and Miri hopped into bed.

Miri groaned when the alarm rang at 7:00am. She knew that there were people, who got less sleep than her, but they probably got a chance to sleep in on certain days, but Miri did not. She went to bed and woke up at the same time every night, and she could only get seven hours of sleep at once, and she was only fifteen. She probably needed more.

After Miri the housework that Miri and Marda did, Miri walked with Peder to the mines.

"Are you all right?" he asked her. "You look tired."

"I am tired, I've been tired, and I am going to be tired," Miri replied. She did not get a break from anything, so she would be tired for a while. "C'mon, let's get to the mines, so we can get the mining over with."

They walked in silence for the rest of the way, just enjoying the other's presence. Miri and Peder were good friends, and they always would be. Mine work was boring, hard, and it could be dangerous, thus the reason why Miri was not allowed to work in the mines for a very long time. Miri was also very small for her age. After mining, came teaching the village, and after that came work. There was no excitement in either of those activities, but tonight, just as Miri hoped, things were different.

Tonight was a Friday night, and there were not as many customers as usual for Fridays, and the customers were a lot ruder than usual too. Miri went home stressed out, hoping for to study, and go to sleep. Instead of people finishing dinner at the village, she heard screams. She ran up the hill to find that they were being robbed. Miri hid behind a bush and watched, as a bunch of men threw all of the people in the village, and all of their things, including her laptop, into a big white truck. She recognized a few of egregious men. They were the gangsters that got away, when the academy was attacked. They now had made their gang larger, and more dangerous, thus the reason why the people in her village could not take them out.

The big white truck started down the hill, and Miri had to follow it. She could not let them get away. The village ended at a hill, and there was only one safe way down the hill, for the hill was very steep. The safest way down was the road, and the road zigzagged down the hill, so it took a long time to get down. The fastest way down the hill was very dangerous, because it was very steep, and you could easily tumble head over heels down the hill, and die. Miri had no other choice. She had to save the people of her village, so she looked down, said, "Oh boy," and began crashing down it.

The way down was both exhilarating and terrifying. When Miri made it to the bottom, she nearly tripped and fell flat on her face. Luckily she did not, and she was now in the town at the bottom. The big white truck was right a head of her, and it was stopping. It was stopping very close to the police station, which was where Miri needed to be. She charged right into the police station, and shouted at the nearest officer, that a bunch of gangsters had robbed the village of future and possessions. They had also taken everyone hostage. The officer did not believe her. The white truck was leaving, but Miri found a solution. There was a red Ferrari parked right outside with the roof down.

The Ferrari's owner watched from a nearby window, as a tiny girl, who seemingly all in one motion jumped in his car, and drove off. He was obviously not very happy about that.

"Excuse me officer," the Ferrari's owner said to the officer at the police station, "but some tiny girl just hijacked my really expensive overpriced Ferrari, and I was wondering if you could go catch her?"

"Was the girl really slim, and had messy mousy brown hair?" the officer asked."

"Yes."

"Not surprising, for that girl just came in claiming that her village had just been attacked by gangsters. We are going to have a car chase."

Miri was traveling at top speed down the highway. She knew that the gangsters in their big white truck knew that she was chasing them, because they were also traveling at top speed. She also knew that there were police chasing her because she heard sirens. The gangster took an empty exit, and pulled over. Miri pulled over too, and she got out. One of the gangsters got out, pulled Peder out of the truck, and put a gun to his head.

"Stop right there, or I will blow this guy's freakin' brains out," he said. "We know that you went to that stinkin' academy, and we want revenge."

A bunch of other gangsters came out, and pointed guns at Miri. Miri put her hands up.

"If you let us go, you will never see your family, friends, or possessions, but at least you will know that they are alive. If you take one more step, then you and everyone will die, for we will gun this guy in the head, and set the truck on fire."

The sirens were closer now, and then they were there. A bunch of policemen were there.

"Hold it, that guy's armed," one of them said.

"They are all armed."

The policemen had a lot of stun guns, and they somehow managed to take the gangsters out in seconds. The policeman that had ignored Miri's story before came out, and said to Miri, "Hey kid, thanks for showing us where these gangsters are, because they had committed a lot of crimes, but you are still going to be a juvenile delinquent. Two wrongs do not make a right."

"Exactly," Miri replied.

"Excuse me,"

" Exactly. Two wrongs do not make a right. You ignored me when I told you that gangsters were robbing my town and taking everyone hostage. That was a wrong. Those gangsters took everything, from every grape, to every can of turkey, to every piece of chalk, to every piece of marble. We do not have a school, but we are trying to get one. They took what we needed to get one. They robbed us of our future. If some gangsters take everything from you, a police officer completely ignores you, and you see a Ferrari outside with the roof down, and you know how to hotwire a car, what would you do? Would you just sit there and let everything you have be taken from you, or would you improvise? I did not even steal that car. I borrowed it without the owner's permission. I would have taken it right back."

All though Miri had saved her village, she still had to go to a hearing, but she did not have to go to a juvenile detention center. When the state heard about Miri's story, they immediately set up a school in the village, and they all lived happily ever after. The end.


End file.
